Your article did a great job of describing a short history of free speech as well as showing how to properly defend it.
I think the whole premise that is used to attack free speech is the denial of free will. Opponents of free speech are subjectivists, and so they believe that there’s no reality and no truth. To them human beings have no rational choice, they’re just like infants who will unquestioningly believe whatever the most prominent voices tell them. And so you hear them regard the right as a “noise machine” that just bamboozles the stupid.
What is traditionally seen as the modern American Left is not alone in this cynical view of human beings. The religious have their own version regarding people as inherently “fallen” and flawed. On the left or right, a cynical view of humanity as tragic automatons without free will leads to power lusters who will decide what is best for them.
